Submission: Bigger resource center is crucial for transfer student engagement

If you entered UCLA as a freshman, or you currently are a freshman, imagine having to experience one of the following during the start of your UCLA career: having only one day of orientation, not living on the Hill, having to work off campus, or driving to school everyday. How many of your memorable and significant experiences of UCLA campus life would never have happened?

The first quarter for any UCLA student is not an easy one, but really try and picture one or more of these factors hindering your UCLA experience. At least one of these complications is applicable to transfer students who make about one-third of the undergraduate student population. In fact, many transfers have to deal with all of the above, in the midst of adjusting to campus and academic life.

The unfortunate truth is that most resources available for transfer students are extremely scattered or tucked away throughout campus, are difficult to navigate, and may not be sufficient for solving transfer-related issues. Services such as academic and career advising, counseling, and scholarship and financial aid offices are spread throughout campus in various administrative buildings, without one cohesive source for transfer students to receive guidance from. Essentially, the locations provide a small space for a large student population, and are inadequate to meet transfer student needs.

The Bruin Resource Center, which runs the Transfer Student Program, is considered by many transfers to be much too small of a physical space and staff to properly accommodate the student services that are specific to a third of the campus’s undergraduate population. A designated, standalone Transfer Center must be constructed to resolve this issue. It would not only act as an aggregator and filter for all the resources available at UCLA, but also provide a space in which transfer-friendly organizations can convene. Overall, it would provide a home base and safe haven for transfer students, day and night.

A common complaint from transfer students regarding the single-day transfer student orientation session is the overload of information provided without the adequate tools or time to effectively sift through and find what is really relevant. A Transfer Center will rectify this problem by creating a more transfer-friendly environment and community, allowing a larger physical space for transfer-to-transfer networking. Additionally, its specialized transfer staff and services would alleviate recurring problems with counselors who lack knowledge about transfer-specific academic and non-academic issues.

In terms of organization and operations, we can look to UC Berkeley’s Transfer, Re-entry and Student Parent Center as a model and point of reference. Seeing as UCLA is considered a flagship University of California campus alongside UC Berkeley, UCLA should remain competitive with Berkeley’s student resources. Not to mention, for fall 2014, UCLA received nearly 2,800 more transfer applications and 700 more transfer Statements of Intent to Register than Berkeley.

As campus engagement staff for the USAC Office of the Transfer Student Representative, it is our mission to promote the participation of 100 percent of the transfer students in campus events and interaction with campus organizations and offices – not that we don’t love our jobs, but a dedicated Transfer Center would aid this mission immensely. For transfers, our time is limited here to begin with, and the way information is provided to us currently lacks the efficiency we need for a True Bruin experience.

A discussion regarding the proposed establishment of a UCLA Transfer Center will take place at a town hall meeting during week 4 in Ackerman Grand Ballroom.

De Guzman, Plascencia, Thai, Dorman, Shah, Shi and Conde are part of the campus engagement staff for the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Office of the Transfer Student Representative.